Athlon 64 FX-53: Added Velocity

AMD wowed us with its release of chips that introduced 64-bit technology for the masses; the Athlon 64 in all flavors has proven to be an impressive performer. The newest high-end (or FX) version of the chip, the AMD Athlon 64 FX-53, manages to use a 2.4-GHz core to defeat the 3.4-GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition (EE) chip in nearly all tests. While the FX-53 is only a speed bump (there are no architectural changes), it's a noticeable bump up into what is arguably first place. If the numbers in our upcoming CPU story impress you as much as they did us, then you might want to consider checking out a system like the Velocity Micro Vision FX ($4,419 direct).

As enthusiasts, we swear that there's virtually nothing high-end missing from this black tower. The bold case front features faux carbon fiber accents that resemble snakeskin from afar and a metal door that hides the excellent optical drive selection: an 8X multiformat DVD+/-RW drive and a 16X DVD/48X CD-RW drive, along with a floppy. While the case lacks a window-like side panel, we appreciate the sound dampening material inside that warrants opacity.

Without any overclocking and 1GB registered DDR 400 SDRAM, the Vision FX turned in stellar numbers. Compared with the performance of the chips in our CPU story, the Vision FX's 30.2 on Business Winstone 2004 and 37.3 on Mulitimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 are record-breaking. Hell, even FX-53's one slight weakness, a score of just 3.26 on the Business Winstone Multitasking, is just shy of the 3.4-GHz P4 EE's score of 3.28. The Vision FX-53's strong performance is no doubt helped along by the two 74GB 10,000-rpm SATA drives in a RAID 0 configuration (a 200GB UATA drive provides extra storage).

The 256MB nVidia GeForce FX 5950 Ultra card continues to prove it's no slouch, either, helping the system turn in 5,098 on 3DMark03 at XGA resolution. For this price you can view the card's awesome images out of an above average 19-inch CRT: the ViewSonic P95F+. Audio is just as nice internally, provided by an Audigy 2 ZS, and externally, pumped out of thunderous Creative GigaWorks S750 7.1 speakers.

Adding to an awesome package is OpenOffice 1.1, as well as the versatile Ulead Digital Creation Suite, including MovieFactory 2 SE, PhotoImpact XL, and VideoStudio 7. A few caveats about the system are the lack of an LCD monitor and flash memory card slots. For the hefty price you are being asked to pay, one would expect to have these components included as a matter of course.

It's not cheap, but the high-end Velocity Micro Vision FX is ready to crank up the speed for you, right out of the box, and is covered by a three-year warranty. We can't be far off in saying that AMD probably fantasized about the FX-53 CPU shipping in a box like this.

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